Burning Out on Studying…Already
Right now might just be the best time to write down my thoughts. My brain is starting to fry. I’m studying for my third big exam, and I still have the finals coming up next week. My next exam is in two days, and I know that there is no way that I’ll have time to do all the studying that I need to do. My brain actually hurts right now. I’ve been plowing through pulmonary physiology problems for the past week. I still can’t figure some of them out without going back and looking up the equations. There’s a part of me that’s scared to admit that I’m already beginning to burn out ““ I mean, this isn’t even the hardest part.
I’m only a first semester medical student. I still have 8 million miles of dusty medical school roads to trek. If I’m already feeling tired, does this mean that I’m not going to be able to handle what lies ahead? I’ve already determined that my body doesn’t work like it used to. When I was an undergrad, I could stay up for days studying, and my body barely noticed. Now, if I get less than 8 hours of sleep, my body starts screaming at me and the rebellion begins.
Figuring out what I should even be studying right now is another challenge. There is so much material to cover; yet I know that I only have so much time. I wonder if I should give up on this pulmonary stuff and just go back to biochem. Oddly enough, a few weeks ago, I thought that the clotting cascade was going to be the end of me. How are you supposed to memorize what a bunch of seemingly pointless roman numerals do to each other? XIIa activates XI to XIa so that XIa can activate IX to IXa?! What kind of madman came up with this insane system?
But as I sit here now, after pulmonary physiology has cleared all of the oxygen out of my brain, the clotting cascade seems strangely appealing. Perhaps my brain would enjoy the sweet taste of a new subject – one fraught with pointless terminology and endless negative feedback systems. I guess I’ll give it a try. Cheers to fibrinogen!
My name is Kendra and I am a fourth-year medical student attending